Snohomish County offices cut services today, thanks to first of six furloughs
Published 11:06 pm Thursday, May 21, 2009
EVERETT — The metal gates have come down over Snohomish County’s customer-service counters. Welcome to the first wave of employee furloughs.
The first-floor desks manned by staff from the auditor, assessor and treasurer’s offices are closed today. Workers aren’t scheduled to return until Tuesday, after the Memorial Day weekend.
That could be inconvenient if you’re trying to get a pet license, record a document or check on property taxes. But get used to it; the closures are a fact of life in these days of tightening budgets. There are five more to come.
“This is the first one,” said Auditor Carolyn Weikel, whose staff of 49 all get an obligatory day off — unpaid. “Most of the public-service offices will be closed.”
The desks are scheduled to close again on June 19, July 2, Aug. 14, Sept. 4 and Dec. 24. This month, they also are stopping work during lunchtime and have curtailed Friday schedules.
Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who account for about two-thirds of the county’s 2,800 employees, voted overwhelmingly earlier this year to take a combination of furloughs and shortened workweeks. They are helping make up a $6.7 million budget shortfall without layoffs. In the end, the union workers lost 11 days, a 4 percent pay cut.
Not everybody has been affected equally. Employees who provide around-the-clock protection, such as sheriff’s deputies and jail workers, are exempt from furloughs, although their departments have been required to make other cuts.
The clerk’s office, where staff belongs to a different union, has furloughs but can’t shut down because state law requires them to keep the justice system running. They are scheduled to open today from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and answer phones from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Planning department employees get their salaries from permit fees, not the general fund. While they haven’t had furloughs, they’ve suffered the largest number of layoffs of any department because of the housing downturn. They recently condensed their schedules and are working from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today.
County spokesman Christopher Schwarzen advised calling departments to check whether they’re open before going in person.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
